Young heart surgery survivors help others in need

FOUR of the country’s bravest children who’ve received life-saving heart operations are now giving others a unique chance to lead healthy, fun-filled lives.

Funds left over from the hole in the heart surgery trust in Kilkenny will now help finance a machine which will keep other children's hearts and lungs working, long after they've had their surgery.

Among those who helped hand over a cheque for more than €21,000 to Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin yesterday was one very special boy little Bobby Maher.

The five year-old survived a horror crash just before Christmas in which his doting mother, Susan Maher, 41, died. His mother used to drive to Dublin and back daily from their Kilkenny home so she could learn sign language and help Bobby communicate with others.

"We're thrilled with the progress he's been making. He's thriving," Bobby's aunt-in-law, Mary Maher, said yesterday.

As Bobby posed for pictures along with other surgery survivors, Craig Gibbons (4) Laura Moore (7) and Conor Saxby (4), his younger and older sisters, Annie and Suzy, were keeping a close eye on proceedings.

"Bobby is in Dublin four days a week. He stays up there. He's being assessed for implants which will help him to hear a lot better ," she said.

The heart operation children were on waiting lists when a group of locals in Kilkenny got together and decided to raise funds to send them to London for surgery.

Money flooded in. Little Craig Gibbons was the first to be sent to London's Great Ormonde Hospital.

Soon, Laura Moore followed. Bobby Maher was next to travel and Conor Saxby was the fourth and final child to get the lifesaving surgery abroad.